Teagasc Signpost Tillage farmer, Vincent Macken reflects on the yields achieved over harvest 2025. Although crops performed, poor grain prices look set to take the gloss of margins on his Co. Meath farm.
2025 was the earliest ever finish to the cereal harvest and I am relieved to report yields were above average.
Talking to other tillage farmers, 2025 seemed to go relatively smoothly for the most part. Weather played its part, particularly during the planting seasons in autumn and spring, allowing adequate spraying and spreading opportunities and of course a dry harvest to finish.
Apart from the dry spell, which may have affected some of those farming on ground lighter than mine, thankfully 2025 will be remembered as a decent enough year field-wise.
However, when all is said and done, the poor grain price will take the gloss off margins and leave many in a tight enough situation, particularly on rented ground. This is so disappointing when we produce such high-quality grain to extremely high EU standards, and with such a low carbon footprint which can be proven now with the recent launch of the Irish carbon footprint tool, AgNav. This surely should be worth more in the Irish agricultural food chain.
Harvest yields
My winter barley was slightly disappointing at 3.5 t/ac. A poor crop of the variety KWS Joyau, which does not like wet feet in a shallow min-till system and a very severe case of scorch early in the season, contributed towards this. In future, I intend to use deep min-till for winter barley.
My best ever crop of oilseed rape (LG Aviron) yielded 2.3 t/ac at 11% moisture. This crop was not sprayed off with glyphosate as no weeds were present and did not get any fungicide at petal fall. A trial with two tramlines sprayed with late foliar nitrogen after petal fall compared to two tramlines without showed a 1% yield difference. I believe farmers should carry out their own trials to learn what works on their farm.
Winter wheat averaged 4.3 t/ac, which was satisfactory in a direct drill and shallow min-till situation. I normally look at harvest grain protein tests to judge if it received too much nitrogen or too little.
My spring barley yielded 3 t/ac, which is a really good average on my heavy Meath soil.
This season, foliar potash was trialled in winter barley and winter oats with no yield response.
Next year’s crops
Cover crop sowing started on August 3, after spraying off with 1,400 grams ai/ha glyphosate to keep on top of my Italian ryegrass problem. This was disced and rolled on July 14, following winter barley. I used a 10 kg/ha mix of 4 kg tillage radish, 3 kg buckwheat and 3 kg phacelia. Phacelia is scarce this year.
On August 18, I planted my oilseed rape (LG Aviron) at 40 seeds/m². This ground was disced in late July and sprayed off with glyphosate pre-sowing. With the high soil temperatures and enough residual nitrogen left over after a dry summer, I expect this crop to grow rapidly and establish well before going into the autumn. My aim is not to apply slug pellets, if possible, to protect soil biology and biodiversity in my fields.
Under the straw incorporation measure I chopped 33ha of cereal straw, along with 14 ha of bean straw. This represents 60% of my cropping area. I am trying to import some cattle slurry to put on chopped straw ahead of sowing winter barley. It is proving difficult to get slurry spread and incorporated within 14 days. In any case, it has to be disced soon. Alternatively, I might just put in a cover crop at discing. Soil samples will have to be taken on all fields before any organic manure is spread.
Vincent Macken is a Signpost Tillage farmer working closely with Signpost Tillage Advisor, John Mahon. The above first appeared in the Farming Independent as part of a Signpost Programme update.